Um Coach's Dream Is Attached To His Nightmare

DAVE JOSEPH COMMENTARY

Sitting in his office Wednesday afternoon looking out at Mark Light Stadium, Jim Morris said: "I'd probably classify it more as a nightmare."

It's the summer of 1996, the summer that LSU tore the heart out of the Hurricanes with a ninth-inning comeback at the College World Series. Morris has been having a recurring dream about that game at Rosenblatt Stadium in Omaha, Neb.

"There's an area under the stands I can see [the field] from, and I can watch the game going on. But I'm trapped under there and can't do anything about it. I'd wake up in the middle of the night from that dream, and I had it more than once. It was a nightmare."

In a sense, that game, that two-out home run by Warren Morris that stole a championship from UM, haunts the Hurricanes' coach. Even today, when he checks the box scores for players he coached at Georgia Tech and UM -- among them Kevin Brown and Nomar Garciaparra -- he can't help but sneak a peek how Warren Morris is doing with the Pirates.

"It's not a negative, but people are constantly bringing up that game," Morris said. "They say, `Man, I couldn't believe it. I thought you guys had it won.'"

All those feelings, all those memories, are being stirred again as Morris and the Hurricanes try to earn their way back to another World Series this weekend in an NCAA regional.

For Morris, the only NCAA coach to bring his team to the College World Series his first five years with a program, it's all here.

Home field ... the No. 1 seed ... resilient players who have battled through adversity and injury ...

And, yes, all the pressure.

You see, here at UM, nothing matters but a trip to the College World Series, and nothing counts short of a championship.

The tradition started with Ron Fraser and remains as strong.

This is hard-core Hurricane baseball, and Morris learned that when he came here to interview for the job in 1993. On a tour of Mark Light Stadium, he found the door of the clubhouse lavatory propped open by the 1974 national runner-up trophy.

Sure, Morris can wave his 290 victories and five consecutive trips to Omaha at the faithful. "But there's always going to be a but," he said.

"It's kind of like the football program. It's always going to be, `But did you win the last game?' That's the question."

Morris can still give you the play-by-play of the '96 Series, still run down the final pitches of the 9-8 loss to LSU. It's the closest Morris has gotten to delivering these 'Canes to the promised land, to giving this program its first national championship since 1985.

And now, as in every summer, the pressure is on. Morris is reminded daily these days of Fraser's CWS championships in 1982 and '85; he's reminded of the tradition, of reservations made before the season for Omaha. Of how important a trip to Rosenblatt Stadium is for this program.

Miami is like "the New York Yankees of college baseball," Morris said.

"Every season you're reminded of it, the tradition of the program. And you can't forget those things that are associated with the program, because that's what makes it so special. Sure it adds pressure. There's no question about it, but that's what people expect."

The question is whether Morris can deliver. This is a team that's lost several players to injury. Leadoff hitter Bobby Hill has a groin injury, and Friday's starting pitcher against Bethune-Cookman will be a freshman, Brian Walker.

But while Morris admits this is not the most talented team he's had, he believes this is a team that will get to Omaha.

"The thing I like most about this team is that they've been through more adversity, more problems, more injuries, more of everything, than any team I've ever had as a coach, yet we're still the No. 1 seed in the country," Morris said.

"We've found a way to win by using different guys almost every night. We've got five pitchers out this year, our starting catcher, Bobby Hill is banged up, I don't know who my No. 3 pitcher is -- but we're the No. 1 seed in the country."

Morris gazes across Mark Light. The injuries, the adversity ... this season could have been a nightmare, the kind that wakes a guy up at night over and over and over again.

But the 'Canes have survived.

"And because of that," Morris said, "this might be the team that gets it done."